


Love & All That Other Hot Garbage

by Niedergeschlagen



Category: Santa Clarita Diet (TV)
Genre: F/M, Here be zombies, Spoilers for Season 3, and here be Abby Hammond's deep fear and insecurity regarding loving Eric Bemis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 21:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niedergeschlagen/pseuds/Niedergeschlagen
Summary: The thing about Eric Bemis is that he is inherently loveable. Whether he's walking around the hallways of his high school clutching both his backpack straps or helping the Hammonds scrub viscera off their immaculate marble top kitchen island, there are one hundred and one qualities about him that would make anyone fall madly and wildly in love with him. And those qualities are precisely Abby's problem.





	Love & All That Other Hot Garbage

The thing about Eric Bemis is that he is inherently loveable. Whether he's walking around the hallways of his high school clutching both of his backpack straps or helping the Hammonds scrub viscera off their immaculate marble top kitchen island, there are one hundred and one qualities about him that would make anyone fall madly and wildly in love with him. And those qualities are precisely Abby's problem. 

She has tried. Honest to God, cross her heart, hope to die - she has tried not to love him. Abby grits her teeth just thinking about how much she wants Eric to be safe. She wants to swaddle him up and shove him in a cupboard, just to be sure he won't come to harm's way. But obviously, she cannot do that. So she grits her teeth and lets Eric help her whacky father try and become a member of a medieval Serbian underground society sworn to hunt and kill people like her flesh-eating mother. It's all right. Everything's under control. Cool cucumbers. 

A lot of people have been telling her to take some sort of a leap of faith, and Abby finds it a bit unfair. She knows she loves Eric. It really isn't about her opening her eyes and realising she's fallen madly and wildly in love with him. Oh no, she's known for a long time now. Even when Eric wasn't steadfastly sacrificing himself for her in the face of Serbian man-eating zombies, she knew she loved him. Not the same way she does now but there was definitely something. 

Eric may be inherently loveable but Abby is inherently loving. Yes, she finds emotional vulnerability scary but she doesn't find it a flaw. She doesn't scoff at her parents when they spout over-the-top declarations of love at each other. Actually, something ugly and wistful rears its head inside her chest and makes her long for someone like that for herself. Abby's by no means a romantic at heart but she's not incapable of love. It just tends to simmer right under her skin and never crawl out of the moat she's dug around her vulnerable self. She wouldn't necessarily call it her heart. Maybe her quintessence. The Quintessence of Abby is protected by a deep, scary moat and only sometimes does she let her parents row across it and wrap that terrified, tiny kernel of her in their warm arms. 

Abby doesn't check on the moat often but when she does after a while, she finds the foundations of a bridge there. She knows it's all Eric's handiwork; she can see it in the meticulous way the foundations of the bridge are laid. How there's precision in each stone - oh, screw that metaphor. 

Curling up next to Eric feels good but Abby's still horrified. Horrified something will happen to him or that something will change. She's also horrified about the prospect of loving Eric and then leaving him. What if she loves him and she dies? Her life is already a haemorrhaging shit show and it's put him in danger countless times. What if it's the other way around? Abby's not blind nor stupid. She knows Eric loves her back. Oh, she's perfectly aware Eric's been adoring her from afar for years now. 

That actually makes her think. If he's loved her all this time and still been there for her, is it right of her to deny whatever utopic view of the future the two of them have? The grandchildren with whom they are going to laugh about blowing up the fracking site, the two parents still grossly in love after decades of marriage, or maybe just the two of them together at the end of the world if it comes down to that? Besides, Eric's been in love with her the whole time and he's still endangered himself willingly for her. And she's endangered herself willingly for him. And when she thinks of it, she realises it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they have children and grandchildren or if they start up a zombie-killing company together because what matters is that they're together. 

Jesus fuck, she despises the little voice in her head telling her all that. Who is that voice to tell her to choose her life companion at the tender age of sixteen? Maybe they won't even last. Even in a perfect world with no undead business, they might not last. Are the odds stacked against them in the imperfect world, too, or are they just what they sound like - odds? 

The little voice in her head sounds a bit like her mom. And despite all her shortcomings, Abby's mom is a pretty smart woman. She's usually been right about what's good for her and what's not. What's more is that eternal love and marital bliss seems to run in Abby's family. 

Eric's fingertips moving up and down her back rouse her from her thoughts. She can't see him but she can tell he's not looking at the laptop screen. Probably hasn't been for a while. 

Nerd, Abby thinks. Internally, she huffs at the stupid smile that spreads across her face when she thinks about Eric. She loves everything about him from how desperately uncool he is to how amazingly cool he is. Eric's a very complex character but so is Abby. 

So are a lot of people, Abby reminds herself. She's not particularly special just for having a multi-faceted personality. 

And yet, she can't help but to give herself some credit for the zombie mom thing and the Heir of the Knight of Serbia thing. She gives some credit to herself for the telling Eric Bemis she's ready to find out where their future might take them thing, too. It's a pretty big step and Abby's been agonizing over it for a good while now. 

"Hey," she whispers into Eric's chest. 

She hears the pillow rustle as Eric turns his head even more to look down at her. She looks up at him. They're really too close for comfort. At the same time, she can't help but feel they're not close enough. That thought really threatens to send her spiralling. 

"Yeah?" 

Abby looks back at the laptop screen. She really can't look him in the eye right now. "I know I said we could find out what's going on -" she waits for Eric to interrupt her with incessant rambling but he never does,"- but I think I already know what's going on."

Eric's hand never falters. He keeps stroking up and down her back. His pulse thickens under her cheek but not enough for his usual panicked antics. Nothing changes. Abby looks up at Eric. 

He still looks the same way he did earlier when she climbed into bed with him. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He smiles at her and she can tell he knows too. 

"Okay," Eric says after a while. 

Abby smiles back at him. Fuck it, she's bringing back the metaphor, just for a minute. She pulls him over the moat. When Eric's there, in the naked part of her, she thinks about her parents going to messed-up lengths to keep each other safe. She can see some of that in her and Eric. 

It's not a big Heureka! moment. The world still seems scary and unpredictable. Abby's still sixteen and the bossy voice in her head is her mom's but she knows it's going to be okay. With the power of love and all that other hot garbage.

**Author's Note:**

> This quintuple cold brew espresso-fueled 4 am cheesefest forward slash nightmare was brought to you by yours truly. Consider hitting that fat fucking kudos button and maybe even finding in your heart the love and care to comment. Thank you ever so much for reading my very humble creation (never thought I'd be writing a Santa Clarita Diet fic in the early hours of the day but here we are). Peace & love (& all that other hot garbage).


End file.
